The splendid sky this morning allowed me to take a nice picture of CN Tower. Against the cold wind hitting my face, I went to shopping at outdoor sports stores on King Street West where 3 stores conveniently gather closely each other. First was Mountain Equipment Co-op at 400. The 2-story building was spacious though not so huge as REI in US. Not all the famous brands, but lots of wears, sacks, shoes and others were displayed. They carried wide range of Black Diamond products, and I bought a pair of liner gloves for $17. Also got cotton pants by MEC for $39. Note that you have to register the membership before buying here with $5 fee.Across the street is Europe Bound Travel Outfitters at 383, which was an interesting store with lots of stuff dumped all over in the narrow floor space. They carry Arc’Teryx but the items were limited.At 500 is the first Patagonia store in Canada that opened on Tuesday in the week. I had a shopping list from my family, so I thought lucky and timely. The store was relatively small. Also one should note that the tax in Canada is high at 13%.

The sky turned dark with thick clouds when we finished lunch, but we decided to revisit Glenn Gould at the cemetery. We knew where the block 38 was, but we could only see the family’s gravestone as the snow covered the land completely. Relying on my memory, I wiped out the snow of a small area, and bingo came out the face of Glenn’s monumental stone. Black Diamond’s thin gloves I just had bought were helpful as it did not soak the wet. We removed the ice that stack on the stone, cleaned the surface and then greeted with Glenn. With a sense of being connected with him, we left the cemetery and get back to downtown.

My friend told me that Christmas illuminations in Toronto tend not to be splashy. Indeed, in the town they look modest in general. (Eaton Center’s tree was large though as shown above.)In many houses though, they do what they can, and there seems to be a large layer of market on the bottom for illuminations. Taking this opportunity, we visited a couple of extreme cases that were once reported in the local newspaper. I don’t know the details where, but they were both about 30 minutes drive out of downtown to different directions.